Breaking down barriers for Canadians with disability

We desperately need a ministry that’s directly responsible and accountable for the broad portfolio of disability policy

By Jennifer Zwicker
and Stephanie Dunn
EvidenceNetwork.ca

Breaking Down Barriers is the galvanizing theme of a recent report from the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. It outlines urgently-needed recommendations to improve access to underused federal disability supports: the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) and Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP).

Jennifer Zwicker

Some of our most vulnerable members of society face multiple hurdles trying to get access to DTC and RDSP. This includes eligibility criteria that don’t reflect the realities of living with a disability and are more strict for people with impairments in mental function compared to those with physical disabilities. It also means a burdensome application processes that can include hidden costs, arbitrary eligibility decisions and opaque claims and appeals processes.

Those with disability are almost twice as likely to live in poverty as other Canadians. That makes programs like RDSP critical.

Bureaucracy is the greatest barrier that needs to be broken down. Accountability and measurable action by National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier and Revenue Canada is long overdue.

Yet it doesn’t make sense that we’re tasking staff at Revenue Canada with determining complex eligibility for much-needed disability savings and income support programs in the first place. The minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the minister of Finance need to heed the Senate recommendations.

The lived experience of the extreme fragmentation of programs and supports is significant.

If you’re a Canadian living in low income with a severe disability, you have to prove your disability status to your provincial government to claim disability supports, and then prove your status again to the federal government to gain eligibility to DTC to set up an RDSP.

Completing these applications is not without cost; people can pay hundreds of dollars to their physicians to complete an application form certifying their disability (in some cases every year). And the certification is out of touch with global standards of disability determination. As well, many bank branches simply don’t support in-person setup of RDSP.

It’s unclear why anyone who meets the strict criteria for provincial disability supports would not be entitled to DTC and RDSP. One of the recommendations in the Senate report is that everyone in a provincial program for people with disabilities be enrolled automatically in RDSP.

For this to happen, collaboration between ministries and across different levels of government is needed. Yet recommendations of this nature aren’t new in Canada. In the 1998 In Unison: A Canadian Approach to Disability Issues report, ministers agreed that “More effective and co-ordinated programs would better serve Canadians with disabilities and the country as a whole.”

That this statement is as true today – two decades later – demonstrates that effective action has failed to follow this intergovernmental vision.

How can we turn this dismal lack of action around? Can the current federal Liberal government make it happen?

Let’s hope so.

In the short-term, the federal government needs to mandate that the ministry of Finance, the Canada Revenue Agency, and Employment and Social Development Canada enact the recommendations outlined in the Senate report, ensuring collaboration where required.

In the longer term, Canada desperately needs a strong and empowered ministry that’s directly responsible and accountable for the broad portfolio of disability policy, including supports and rights-based legislation.

This ministry should engage with provinces to determine how to best streamline federal and provincial disability supports.

Finally, all parties need to realize that the current system is working against Canadians with disabilities. Denying this already disadvantaged group access to the supports that they need – and are entitled to – works against our vision of an inclusive Canada.

Dr. Jennifer Zwicker is a director of Health Policy at the School of Public Policy and assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary. Stephanie Dunn is a research associate in the Health Policy division at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. They are both contributors with EvidenceNetwork.ca, which is based at the University of Winnipeg.